The Utah Gender Presentation Scale for Communication: Development and Validation of a Measure of Voice-Related Gender Incongruence.

PURPOSE: The aim of the present study was to develop and validate a patient-reported outcome measure for gender incongruence specific to voice and communication parameters, including pitch, intonation, resonance, loudness, speech smoothness, speech clarity, word choice, facial expression, gesture, and posture. METHOD: The Utah Gender Presentation Scale for Communication (U-GPS) includes 10 items, each on a 10-point scale from masculine to feminine. Items were selected based on literature review and patient focus groups. During test administration, respondents provide their current rating and goal rating for each item. The difference between these scores is used to calculate an overall incongruence score. Prospective data from transgender and gender-diverse (n = 155) and cisgender (n = 69) individuals were then used for a multiparametric psychometric evaluation of the measure. RESULTS: Findings demonstrate excellent levels of internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha for current scores: α = .943; Cronbach's alpha for goal scores: α = .970), test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient = .905), longitudinal validity (improvement in therapy for trans women: F = 293.0, p < .001; nonbinary folx: F = 80.9, p < .001), concurrent validity (correlation with the Trans Woman Voice Questionnaire: r = .51, p < .001), and known-group expectations (differences among five gender groups: F = 82.7, p < .001). CONCLUSION: The U-GPS is a meaningful measure of voice-related gender incongruence, which is clinically relevant for assessing goals in gender-affirming voice and communication therapy for individuals across the gender spectrum.

Behavioral Treatment Approaches to Lowering Pitch in the Female Voice.

PURPOSE: To assess the outcomes of three voice therapy treatment approaches with an emphasis on lowering speaking pitch. Transmasculine and cisgender individuals may desire to lower their speaking pitch, yet there has not been a method described in the literature to do this effectively using only behavioral techniques. METHOD: To investigate these approaches, we enrolled 32 adult cisgender females and randomly assigned them to one of four treatment groups: vocal function exercises (VFE), resonant voice therapy (RVT), lip-rounding therapy (LRT), and a control group. Participants received individual instruction and feedback on the given exercise program, and they continued to practice daily for 4 weeks. RESULTS: Acoustic recordings were collected before treatment, immediately after the first session, and after 4 weeks of treatment. Results showed a lower minimum pitch in the physiological range, lower speaking fundamental frequency (SFF) in reading, and lower SFF in spontaneous speech-with treatment groups performing better than the control group. Additionally, participants' self-rating of the vocal effort expended to speak in a low pitch decreased over the treatment period. CONCLUSIONS: Each treatment approach (VFE, RVT, and LRT) was successful in lowering the speaking pitch of cisgender females. These methods would likely be useful for clients seeking to speak in a lower pitch. Future research may expand results to include clinical populations, such as transmasculine individuals.

Evidence of Absence: Abstract Metrical Structure in Speech Planning.

Rhythmic structure in speech is characterized by sequences of stressed and unstressed syllables. A large body of literature suggests that speakers of English attempt to achieve rhythmic harmony by evenly distributing stressed syllables throughout prosodic phrases. The question remains as to how speakers plan metrical structure during speech production and whether it is planned independently of phonemes. To examine this, we designed a tongue twister task consisting of disyllabic word pairs with overlapping phonological segments and either matching or non-matching metrical structure. Results showed that speakers had more difficulty producing metrically regular word pairs, compared to irregular pairs; that is, word pairs with irregular meter had faster productions and fewer speech errors in this production task. This finding of metrical regularity inhibiting production is inconsistent with an abstract metrical structure that is planned independently of phonemes at the point of phonological encoding.

Paying the meter: Effect of metrical similarity on word lengthening.

Language has a rhythmic structure, but little is known about the mechanisms that underlie how it is planned. Traditional models of language production assume that metrical and segmental planning occur independently and in parallel (Roelofs & Meyer Learning Memory and Cognition, 24(4), 922-939, 1998). We test this claim in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants completed an event-description task in which a disyllabic target word shared segmental overlap with a prime that either had matching or nonmatching lexical stress. Participants lengthened words in trials with both segmental and metrical overlap, which could either be the result of metrical interference or having uttered a prime with similar segmental realizations. To adjudicate between these possibilities, Experiment 2 included segmentally distinct word pairs with either matching or nonmatching stress. Participants again showed lengthening in trials with both segmental and metrical overlap, but no lengthening from metrical overlap alone. These data suggest that the acoustic-phonetic similarity of the initial syllables of the prime and target creates competition that leads to word lengthening. These are consistent with production models in which segmental and metrical structures are tightly bound at the point of phonological encoding.

Pushing the Envelope: Developments in Neural Entrainment to Speech and the Biological Underpinnings of Prosody Perception.

Prosodic cues in speech are indispensable for comprehending a speaker's message, recognizing emphasis and emotion, parsing segmental units, and disambiguating syntactic structures. While it is commonly accepted that prosody provides a fundamental service to higher-level features of speech, the neural underpinnings of prosody processing are not clearly defined in the cognitive neuroscience literature. Many recent electrophysiological studies have examined speech comprehension by measuring neural entrainment to the speech amplitude envelope, using a variety of methods including phase-locking algorithms and stimulus reconstruction. Here we review recent evidence for neural tracking of the speech envelope and demonstrate the importance of prosodic contributions to the neural tracking of speech. Prosodic cues may offer a foundation for supporting neural synchronization to the speech envelope, which scaffolds linguistic processing. We argue that prosody has an inherent role in speech perception, and future research should fill the gap in our knowledge of how prosody contributes to speech envelope entrainment.

The effects of articulation on the perceived loudness of the projected voice.

UNLABELLED: Arthur Lessac developed a voice training approach that concentrated on three energies: structural action, tonal action, and consonant action. In Lessac-Madsen Resonant Voice Therapy (LMRVT), speech-language pathologists help patients achieve a resonant voice through structural posturing and awareness of tonal changes. However, LMRVT many not necessarily include the third component of Lessac's approach: consonant action.This study examines the effect that increased effort on consonant production has on the speaking voice-particularly regarding vocal loudness and projection. METHODS: Audio samples were collected from eight actor participants who read a monologue using three distinct styles: normal articulation, poor articulation (elicited using a bite block), and overarticulation (elicited using a Lessac-based training intervention). Twenty graduate students of speech-language pathology listened to speech samples from the different conditions and made comparative judgments regarding articulation, loudness, and projection. RESULTS: Group results showed a strong correlation between the articulatory condition and the level of perceived loudness and projection. That is, as precision of articulation increased, the ratings of perceived loudness and projection increased, as well. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that articulation treatment may have a positive influence on the perception of vocal loudness and projection. This has implications for future directions in expanding voice therapy modalities.